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Sunnyvale, California – (October 31, 2013) – Spirent Communications, the leader in networks, services and devices testing, announced today that it will be hosting the fourth semi-annual Open Networking Foundation (ONF) PlugFest at the Spirent Proof of Concept (SPOC) Lab in Sunnyvale, Calif., Nov. 4-8. This event will primarily focus on OpenFlow 1.3 and will give vendors the opportunity to perform interoperability testing with other vendors’ software and hardware.
The Fall PlugFest will include the following ONF member companies and collaborators: Alcatel-Lucent, Beijing Internet Institute (BII), Ciena, Fiberhome Technologies, Freescale, HP, IBM, Infoblox, the Indiana Center for Network Translational Research and Education (InCNTRE), Ixia, Luxoft, NEC, Netronome, NoviFlow, NTT Communications, Oracle, Spirent Communications, Tail-f Systems, TorreyPoint, University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab (UNH-IOL) and VMware.

ONF PlugFests accomplish the equivalent of two months of quality assurance testing in about a week's time. Initial testing will be one controller to one switch, and each controller vendor will pair up with a switch vendor to run through a series of standard tests defined by the ONF Testing and Interoperability Working Group. Additional stages will follow the initial testing based on the interoperability results.

This event will mark the first time that the OpenFlow Management and Configuration Protocol (OF-Config) is tested. OF-Config defines a mechanism for OpenFlow controllers to access and modify configuration data on an OpenFlow switch, and it is an important part of the protocol suite being developed by ONF.

"The PlugFest has a goal of providing end users with interoperable products, and accelerating the adoption of Software-Defined Networking and the OpenFlow protocol," said Dan Pitt, executive director at Open Networking Foundation. "We thank Spirent for stepping up to host this event and look forward to seeing the innovative implementations of the OpenFlow protocol, OF-Config and soon some useful applications."

The last ONF PlugFest at InCNTRE brought in nearly 50 network engineers from all over the world, testing OpenFlow versions 1.0, 1.2 and 1.3 in controllers and switches in a neutral working environment.

"New SDN/OpenFlow-enabled architectures promise great programmability and agility across the computer and network layers, but the devil is in the details in terms of understanding the performance and scalability factors of each layer and how these factors are inter-linked," said Angus Robertson, vice president, market segment at Spirent Communications. "Interoperability testing is critical to assessing the readiness of new versions of the OpenFlow protocol, and we are delighted to lead the use of our state-of-the-art Proof of Concept Lab to conduct this PlugFest."

About Spirent Communications plc
Spirent Communications plc. (LSE: SPT), a global leader in test & measurement, inspires innovation within development labs, networks and IT organizations to enable customers to deploy communications networks, services & applications, and devices that enrich life. Our extensive portfolio of solutions test data centers, high speed Ethernet networks and services, 3G/4G wireless networks and devices, network security, and global navigation satellite systems. With solutions used by more than 1,700 customers in 30 countries, the world’s largest equipment manufacturers, service providers, enterprise and governments rely daily on Spirent to help ensure their success. Based in Sunnyvale, CA, Spirent Communications has 1,300 employees worldwide.

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